Let’s have a discussion about house hunting today! I was one of the first of my friends to buy a house, and lots more are either new home owners or are looking to be in the next few years. Because I’ve been in my house for a bit, and I’m clearly into houses, I get asked often about things to look for when you’re house hunting.

You might have no idea at all how much money a bank will be willing to loan you. The basic rule of thumb (if you have good credit), is that the bank will lend you 4x the amount of your yearly income. You then need to decide what that would mean monthly for you and if you can take that on… just because they’ll…

I spent yesterday in bed, but productive, created a word cloud using http://www.Wordle.net, to visualize my Housing Wish List. I also started a new Pinterest board. I am nothing if not a planner, so while not going actual House Hunting until mid 2016, my goals are front and center.

I am going from a set bi-weekly paycheck to a weekly paycheck with fluctuating benefits. So I have sat down and created a spreadsheet that I will review monthly based on projections and again quarterly to revise projections. SEE SNAPSHOT

Planning Stages:

I have low overhead, since I currently live in subsidized housing, so allows me to maximize savings before move deadline, July 2016

I have no credit cards or credit card debt.

I have an income sensitive student loan payment.

I have signed up for Credit Karma to monitor my credit file for free until the time I need to aggressively take action, then I will use my Free Credit report, 1 from each repository each quarter

I have had the car I co-signed for refinanced, out of my name, so that no longer affects my debt to income ratio.

My car loan and furniture acct are scheduled to end but plan to pay off earlier at Tax time

I love to read so during the holiday sales, I got 2 year subscriptions to all my favorite magazines for $5 each

Hopefully automating my fixed expenses will allow the aggressive savings plan to be a reality, but can fluctuate as needed

Most people today are scared to buy a home. it is mostly because people don’t have enough down payment saved or cannot afford house payments or they have credit card debt. It is going to hard but if we start saving small and take baby steps we can get there.When my husband and I first thought about buying a house we only had $20,000 in our savings. In bay area, a single family house costs $600K+ now and a town home costs $500K+.Where will we get the money for a 20% down payment?

It took us 4 years to save for a house and we made the 20% down payment.we also had $10,000 left in our savings after closing costs. I would have liked more but we found the perfect house and we went for it. Here are a few tips that helped us build our home fund.

According to the 2014 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, published by the National Association of Realtors®, one of the main issues holding back first-time homebuyers is the saving for a down payment. This factor has resulted in a decrease in the number of first-time buyers, to 33 percent of the total housing market, from the high of 50 percent in 2010 when we had the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit.

But here’s some good news. A recent announcement from Fannie Mae may address some of this concern. Fannie Mae has reduced the down payment requirement – from 5 percent to 3 percent – as long as one of the buyers is a first-time homebuyer (defined as someone who has not owned a home in the last 3 years).

Consider how this impacts a typical buyer on a $200,000 home purchase. With a 5 percent down payment, the buyer would have…

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I am starting this blog as a buffer for my racing mind and unlimited tasks that I seem to endlessly volunteer for, to motivate, document, and share my blended unconventional family's journey to budget, save and survive the purchase our first home.

I am a 39 year old with two daughters, 20 and 13.

I work full time as an Administrative Professional, which I enjoy very much. My favorite past times are DIY crafts , Pac Man, anything Marvel Comic Book based.

I also am a proud Geek and Mental Health Advocate, being diagnosed as Bipolar at age 30 and my youngest daughter being diagnosed at age 5.